This invention relates in general to firearms and in particular to improvements for use with shotguns.
Various types of firearms include handguns, such as for example pistols and automatics, and long guns, such as for example rifles and shotguns. Firearms generally comprise barrels within which high pressure combustion gas is created to force a projectile out one end of the barrel toward an intended target. A shotgun is a firearm that uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot or a solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are available in different calibers.
The caliber of a shotgun is measured in terms of gauge (U.S.) or bore (U.K.). The gauge number is determined by the number of solid spheres of a diameter equal to the inside diameter of the barrel that could be made from a pound of lead. For example, a 10 gauge shotgun nominally should have an inside diameter equal to that of a sphere made from one-tenth of a pound of lead. The most common gauges are 12 (having a 0.729 inch or 18.5 mm diameter) and 20 (having a 0.614 inch or 15.6 mm diameter) although other gauges are available.
Shotguns are also available in a range of firearm operating mechanisms, including breech loading, double, pump-, bolt-, and lever-action, semi-automatic, and even fully-automatic variants. Shotguns are available with single barrels or multiple barrels (commonly called double barrel shotguns). The most popular double barrel configurations are side-by side and over/under. Side-by-side barrel configurations have two barrels in a common horizontal plane. Over/under barrel configurations have two barrels in a common vertical plane.
Over/under shotgun barrel configurations allow a shooter to load and shoot multiple barrels. Over/under shotguns are almost universally break open actions, with the barrels tilting up at the rear to expose the breech ends of the barrels for unloading and reloading.
It would be desirable to provide an improved shotgun, in particular an improved over/under shotgun.